Rather than brands being determined by their ads, they are now the result of what their people are saying about them. And, with both B2C and B2B businesses aiming to create more engaging content in the future, earned media seems to be the way forward.

Gathering together earned media means you can increase your content library quickly without having to spend too much time planning and creating original content.

So how can you tap into the power of earned media and leverage it in your content strategy?

First of all, you need to give your audience a reason to submit content.

We find that implementing a hashtag is a great way to do that, as it can be spread over multiple channels and you can use a tool like TINT to bring together content published via the hashtag all in one place.

By doing this, you’re saving time and money by not hiring freelancers or using your team to create new content from scratch.

But getting consumers to publish content via your designated hashtag can be hard, which is why you need to make sure you create a hashtag that encourages and engages.

Here’s how you can do that:

Make sure your hashtag is relevant and straightforward. Consumers need to know immediately what it’s all about so they can hit publish quickly. Remember, time is of the essence when it comes to social media. This means your hashtag should be easy to spell and even easier to remember.

Make sure it’s short and to the point (on Twitter, especially, there is a character limit and you don’t want your hashtag taking up much-needed space).

Research whether it’s been used before. The last thing you want is your brand associated with something that’s not relevant or, worse, something negative.

And, while these are some of the things you should consider when creating your hashtag, there are a couple of things you want to avoid:

Avoid generic hashtags

Don’t confuse consumers by using tons of different hashtags in every post

Don’t use a hashtag that doesn’t reflect the values of your brand and how you want it to be seen by consumers

Evergreen Hashtags VS Campaign Hashtags

It’s worth coming up with a couple of hashtags so you can separate content out depending on its theme or purpose.

For example, you might want to create one hashtag for a dedicated campaign where consumers can share images of themselves with your product, and then create another hashtag that’s evergreen, where buyers can share their reviews and experiences with your product or service.

Step Two: Reach and Convert New Customers

Once you’ve got your content library of earned media set up and ticking over with new content consistently being added to it, it’s time to tap into it and reuse it throughout your marketing channels.

There are four main places you can integrate earned media for better results.

Earned Media on Social Media

The simplest way to reuse earned media is to reshare it across your social channels. Keep on top of your hashtags and who is using them and engage with these consumers to keep them coming back for more.

Brand fans have the power to increase social engagement by up to 23%, too.

Take Kopari Beauty as an example, a key player in the beauty industry that wanted to boost engagement and create more authentic connections with their fans. To do this, they gave their Instagram over to Marianna Hewitt, a lifestyle blogger for a day.

Her posts were a hit, generating 38.9% more likes on average than posts from the week before. And, as a bonus, it exposed Kopari Beauty’s products to a whole host of new fans.

Earned Media in Paid Ads

When 77% of consumers claim that authentic customer photos have a bigger impact on their purchase decisions than polished photos distributed by marketing teams, it makes sense to integrate earned media into paid media.

Combining these two marketing avenues can bring in as many as 4x more click throughs on Facebook ads than if you were to run them separately.

Let’s look at Blenders Eyewear as an example.

This fashion brand tapped into the power of customer content by featuring product reviews alongside photos of their products in retargeting ads on Facebook. As a result, they doubled their click through rate.

Earned Media on Your Website

When customer content drives more sales than brand-created content, it’s time to start putting it everywhere – especially the place where people actually purchase from you. That’s your website, if you hadn’t guessed already.

The Marriott Vacation Club do a great job of this on their website using TINT. Because they are part of the travel industry, making their destinations look alluring and beautiful is part of the process.

So, in order to show off what they offer and what customers can do at The Marriott, they set up a dedicated page that pulled together images and content from previous visitors.

Earned Media in Traditional Marketing

Just because earned media is often gathered online, that doesn’t mean it has to stay there.

Quirky playlist titles were slapped on huge billboards. Titles like “Sorry I lost your cat” and “root canal songs” were plastered around cities to show the unique playlist abilities that Spotify is so well known for.

The campaign was so successful because it was so simple.

It took one tiny part of Spotify’s brand and dug deep to bring together consumers and the core brand message in a fun way.

Step Three: Customer Advocacy

Once you’ve figured out how you’re going to reach new customers with previous buyer’s content, it’s time to make sure it’s not just a one-off.

Earned media should be a consistent, integral part of your content strategy if you want customers to keep coming back for more.

There are three key ways you can do this:

Tap into the power of brand ambassadors

Start by identifying current brand ambassadors and listen to what they’re saying about your brand. Keep a list of them on Twitter and other social media, and consistently check what they’re posting about your brand.

If you don’t have as many brand ambassadors as you’d like, or you’d like to “recruit” more, you can start sharing and interacting with people who regularly create earned media for your brand.

LA Fashion Week used TINT to turn regular attendees into brand ambassadors. By giving fashion lovers the chance to upload their own footage and videos via a hashtag to a TINT wall, they reached a wider audience and showed the event from multiple different perspectives – rather than the singular viewpoint of the media.

Influencer campaigns

Similarly to identifying key content creators in your customer base, you can also identify key players in your industry.

Influencer campaigns let you tap into the audiences of influential, relevant people and reach a wider base of tuned in consumers.

The bloggers selected had huge followings, which opened the brand up to even more potential customers. And, when customers trust bloggers more than brands, it was an important step in the right direction for Gap.

Loyalty Campaigns

People like to be rewarded for their actions. Fact.

If you’re struggling to get consumers engaged, a long-term loyalty program might be the answer.

Take Marriott Rewards, as an example. They’ve connected the social aspect of earned media to their loyalty program to reward consumers for brand advocacy.